Case study: how a mobile app and virtual trees can engage employees in volunteering

Is it possible to combine a corporate conference with an ecological volunteer project? Can you make our employees embrace volunteering, one of our core corporate values, while they will be perfecting their professional skills and participating in event activities? This was the challenge put forward by Philip Morris International before the Deltaplan agency in January 2018.

“During the preparation stage, we came up with quite a lot of ideas: building bird houses, purchasing bowls for dog shelters, or planting real trees, but none of those ideas fit the business conference format, nothing felt right,” says Polina Tyurikova, a business projects manager with the Deltaplan agency. “And then we found a solution in the realm of digital technologies.”

The Eventicious event app comes with a feature that you can use to add a touch of play to any business conference while still remaining true to the conference format. For each activity completed at the conference, such as attending a seminar, asking a speaker a question, or completing an assignment, participants are automatically awarded bonus points. How these points can be spent depends on each individual event, on its goals and mission. In the case of Philip Morris International, the goal was to draw employees into volunteering, and the Deltaplan agency suggested using bonus points to plant virtual trees. In the spring, after the snow has melted, these virtual trees were to become real-life trees that will be planted in city parks and squares.

“With this solution we were able to kill two birds with one stone: give an all-new and modern touch to volunteer work by using digital technologies and do what the client asked: engage employees in a shared good deed. During the conference, all attendees did their best to earn as many bonus points as they could to plant even more trees. This was an excellent motivator,” says Polina Tyurikova, a business projects manager with the Deltaplan agency.

One virtual tree cost 100 points that could be earned by taking an active part in the conference program. For example, showing up at 7.00 a.m. for a morning workout would earn you 50 points, posting something in general chat – 25 points, rating a presentation – 5 points. Points could also be earned by giving correct answers to test and quiz questions in the app. Those hard-earned points could then be swapped for virtual trees at a special stall set up for that purpose, and each time someone did that, a notification about the new achievement would automatically appear in the conference chat.

Everyone at the conference jumped into the game and excitedly shared their achievements with their colleagues in general chat. The objective of engaging employees in corporate volunteer work was one hundred percent achieved, and the application played an instrumental role in that.